Palestinian, Lebanese protesters demand rebuilding

Some 2,000 demonstrators from all over Lebanon gathered in downtown Beirut Oct. 12 to demand that the Lebanese government rebuild the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp destroyed by the Lebanese Army in 2007. A master plan for reconstruction was approved by the Lebanese government in 2008, but reconstruction has been postponed repeatedly.

Storage container used as a school for Nahr al-Bared children. WW photo: Joyce Chediac

Homeless Nahr al-Bared families wore T-shirts and caps with the names of their many different community organizations. Especially moving were the Palestinian children who carried small cardboard houses they had made.

Palestinians chanted and clapped along with their Lebanese supporters demanding a stop to the construction delays and an end to the Lebanese Army’s siege of the camp. The action, called by the Monitoring Committee to Support Nahr al-Bared, was attended by all Palestinian political groups. Similar protests were held in Saida and other Lebanese cities. (Beirut Star, Oct. 13)

No regard for Palestinian rights

The U.S. government claims to search the world for human rights cases to defend. Yet it remains silent on this blatant destruction of a Palestinian community.

To get the full story, this reporter spoke to leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP was appointed by the other Palestinian groups to follow the Nahr al-Bared situation.

Abu Jabad is responsible for PFLP political activities in Lebanon. A resident of Nahr al Bared, he was one of the last people to leave the camp during the three-month bombardment and siege.

“Nahr al-Bared is the most northern camp in Lebanon and the second largest,” he said. “It is between Naha al Bared River and the sea—12 kilometers from the Syrian border.” The camp has ten schools, a U.N. Relief and Works Agency clinic, and several small clinics.

“When the camp was created in 1949 there were 5,000 people. Before it was destroyed there were 37,400.” Among them, Abu Jabad said, were Palestinians who had been living in Iraq but were forced to flee in the first Gulf War. “Palestinians paid a lot when Iraq was invaded,” he said. “In Nahr al-Bared they paid again” when that camp was destroyed.

Nahr al-Bared had the highest standard of living of any Palestinian camp in Lebanon. “It was the marketplace for 356 Lebanese villages north of it,” Abu Jabad said. “It was the only camp like this. It had 1,500 shops.” It was also the quietest camp, with excellent relations with the surrounding Lebanese community.

Why was the camp destroyed?

The camp was demolished by the Lebanese Army in a dispute with Fatah al Islam, a small non-Palestinian group which had infiltrated the camp. “Ninety percent of Fatah al Islam came from outside Lebanon, from Morocco to India,” Abu Jabad said. The group was alleged to have a philosophy similar to that of al-Qaeda. At most, it had 150 to 200 members, the BBC said at the time. The group was not seen as part of or even supportive of the Palestinian cause, but had merely situated itself in a Palestinian camp.

Abu Jabad explained that “Fatah al Islam killed 17 Lebanese soldiers in Tripoli and outside the camp.” The Lebanese Army response was to indiscriminately pound the entire camp with heavy artillery and air bombardments for three months, while depriving the population of food and water and forcing most of the residents to flee in any way they could.

Abu Ali Hassan, another PFLP leader, reported: “All the Palestinian parties agreed that this problem group [Fatah al Islam] was not to be dealt with from the outside.” The Palestinians felt they could best resolve the situation themselves. During the siege, Hassan said, Palestinian leaders met with the Lebanese President and head of the army. But Palestinian groups were not permitted to resolve the situation in their own camp. “Palestinians were not responsible for this problem, but the people of Nahr al Bared camp paid,” said Hassan.

Abu Jabad added, “Forty-seven civilians were killed and 415 injured.” The camp had two parts—the old and the new camp. He said that “in the old camp, all the Palestinian homes were destroyed—5,874. In the new camp 193 homes were destroyed and 701 homes were partly destroyed.”

Abu Jabad explained that the camp is still under military control. Residents who have lived there all their lives need permits to enter. People of the camp are not permitted to have contact with the Lebanese villages whose residents used to purchase goods from the camp. Camp residents have therefore lost their homes and their livelihoods too.

Living in storage containers

Today, more than half of Nahr al-Bared’s residents have returned to the camp’s outskirts, mostly living in makeshift dwellings or in the ruins of their homes, as they wait for the camp to be rebuilt. Some of the camp’s homeless have been forced to live in metal storage containers, putting them at risk for heat exhaustion in the summer and respiratory problems in the winter

Another 10,000 swell the already overcrowded Beddawi camp in Tripoli. There, this reporter spoke with Imad Audeh, the PFLP leader responsible for north Lebanon, which includes the Nahr al-Bared and Beddawi camps.

Audeh explained that millions of dollars have been contributed by Arab and European governments toward rebuilding Nahr al-Bared via the refugee fund of the Lebanese government. “Where is the money?” he asked. “There’s nothing on the ground yet.”

Now the government is delaying construction because of the claim that the camp sits on an ancient ruin. Audeh said most Palestinians feel this is just another excuse.

“Politicians use the Nahr al-Bared situation to their own advantage,” Audeh continued, “and at the end who gets hurt? The Palestinians.” He pointed out that during the recent election campaign the Lebanese government repaired the homes of 200 Lebanese families who lived in the camp, while leaving Palestinian homes in ruin. Palestinians cannot vote in Lebanon.

Audeh explained that the unemployment rate at Nahr al Bared has risen from 20 to 25 percent to 70 percent. “Before millions of dollars changed hands; now the camp is closed by the military,” he said.

As in Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinians in Lebanon continue to fight for their rights. The struggle to rebuild Nahr al-Bared and to return to Palestine is far from over. Thousands of Nahr al-Bared residents have protested in front of stilled bulldozers, backed by demonstrations in Palestinian refugee camps throughout Lebanon.

And at the nearby Beddawi refugee camp, displaced families have recently taken refuge in schools. They are refusing to leave for other temporary shelter, claiming they would only be satisfied by a return to the Nahr al-Bared camp—or to their property in Palestine.